Sheriff's Words Are Scary Throwback To Bad Old Days

November 25, 1986|By Bill Bond

Frankly speaking dangerously. Lake County Sheriff Noel Griffin Jr. told us in a news story over the weekend what he will do when he catches up with masked thugs who crashed a bingo game at an area mobile home park and robbed players -- mostly elderly women -- of $700 in nickels, dimes and jewelry.

One of the robbers fired a gunshot into the ceiling. No one was injured in the Thursday night robbery.

Said the high constable the next day: ''Frankly, I want to catch them and kill them. Those people are dangerous and they are capable of killing so we are going to do it first if they come out with guns and don't throw them down immediately.''

That kind of tough shoot-from-the-hip talk ought to win votes in an election and it might get the attention of the thieves -- if they can read.

Indeed, the sheriff's publicly stated preference for an O.K. Corral ''shoot and ask questions later'' form of criminal justice is scary, a throwback to the Old West. Or far worse, a semblance of the same type of law and order that prevailed in Central Florida not too many years ago.

I could hear Judge Roy Bean vowing to carry out capital punishment without benefit of a trial and jury in the days of gunslingers, vigilantes and posses. But public utterances about similar justice from rational and responsible law enforcement officers in 1986?

The downtown businesses hope to collect 150 bags of groceries and 200 $5 gift certficates for toys by Dec. 18. It is by far one of the largest humanitarian undertakings by a single group in the area.

''It's hard to imagine an empty dinner table on Christmas Eve or children who have no presents'' on Christmas morning, said Bill Cermak, one of the key movers in this year's food collection.

Merchants need total community involvement if the project is to succeed.

Donations of food and money can be left at First Baptist Church of Leesburg on Thursdays from 5 to 8 p.m. through Dec. 18. Those who have no transportation should notify Cermak or the church and the group will pick up your food or monetary contribution.

From the Monday mail. Unique is right, most unique is wrong.

Unique is defined in Websters as ''one and only; single; sole; having no like equal.''

And a reader in Wildwood has sentenced me to a trek to the woodshed of the literary unwashed because I said in a recent column the base for the flag in front of the old Lake County Courthouse was ''most unique.''

The letter writer continued: ''By now your host of literate readers have convinced you that there are no degrees of uniqueness, if there is such a word. A thing either is or it ain't.''

The writer signed off, ''Uniquer Than Thou.''

Dear Uniquer:

Thank you for pointing out the literary abuse of the use of an absolute. I absolutely agree. Either something is one of a kind or it isn't. I goofed.

Literally, the flag base in Tavares was not the most unique when it was dedicated to mark the county's 50th anniversary in 1937. Nor is it now. But I think you will agree it remains most unusual, for sure.